The rise of populist leaders and movements is sometimes the partial result of people’s economic insecurities and worries about the future.
Getty Images
Economic insecurity is one factor that drives populism, a former politician from Hungary writes.
People watch COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber on a screen as he speaks during a plenary session at the COP28 UN Climate Summit, Dec. 13, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
(AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
Beyond the international negotiations, COP serves as a critical venue for global civil societies to exchange knowledge, organize and build a better world.
A protest against the outcome of the 2023 presidential election in Nigeria.
Olukayode Jaiyeola/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Energy firms are likely to lie about their corporate social responsibility to the environment. Their deception can be turned around for good if they are held accountable.
Georgians protest a foreign agent bill that mirrored a Russian law used to crack down on dissent.
Vano Shlamov/AFP via Getty Images
Foreign agent laws claimed as a tool to fight back against foreign interference can also be used to silence critics and repress law-abiding NGOs, independent media and individuals.
Denial of observer status robs the three NGOs of a voice.
Getty images
A scholar who visited Syria after the earthquake observes that as the war has dragged on, a humanitarian organization she’s researched for 10 years has branched out.
Anti-apartheid activist Neil Aggett (29) died in apartheid police detention in 1982.
Charcoal on paper by Dr Amitabh Mitra/Wiki Commons
The spy watchdog needs to make its findings on complaints against the country’s intelligence agencies public as a matter of principle.
Activists gather in front of Tel Aviv’s Embassy of Egypt to demonstrate in support of activist Alaa Abdel Fattah.
Photo by Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
A scholar of humanitarianism sums up what she saw on the ground during a five-week research trip to Poznań, Lublin, Warsaw, Krakow and several smaller cities along the Poland-Ukraine border.
The Independence Arch in Accra represents Ghana’s democracy.
George Appiah/Wikimedia Commons
These organisations are ideally placed to contribute their fine-grained local knowledge. They intimately understand the specific needs of the most vulnerable in their communities.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has reshuffled his cabinet amid growing accusations of of graft, and an outbreak of violence unprecedented in 25 years.
Photo by Rodger Bosch/AFP via Getty Images
South Africa’s public sector works somewhat better than those of most other middle-income countries. Yet, unlike them, it has not managed to achieve gains in the midst of messiness.
A protest organised by the Congress of South African Trade Unions in South Africa. The question is: on whose behalf does the union movement advocate?
Phillip Magakoe/AFP via Getty Images
In this moment of crisis, South Africa urgently needs decisive action. But all too often South Africans of all political stripes seem trapped in stale discourses.
Senior Lecturer, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, and Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow, World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), SOAS, University of London